Potty Training (aka Big Girls Part 3)

To say that I prepared for this transition would be an understatement. Yes, I get it, no baby goes off to university wearing diapers. HOWEVER, this transition was going to be a big one and since I had already maximized my stress levels on the career front, I figured the entire family would benefit from as smooth of a transition as possible for this one! 

After much research and mommy chats with trusted friends we decided on a "plan of attack" that went something like this. Put your family on lock down for at least four days in a row, kids are naked from the waist down, potties were in the living room and we watched a lot of Disney flicks. All joking aside, our March Break did end up a lot like this, let me fill you in on how it happened!

The Warm Up
First the girls received their very own potty from Auntie Monique! Complete with their own roll of toilet paper, this birthday present was just what the girls need to get the conversation going! Lots of potty books (Thanks Elmo!) and some great videos (thanks to one of my students, Eoghan!) Check out Listen to Your Body (Go in the Potty). The girls and I would sing and dance this song on many occasions. I must have watched this video at least 100 times.

The Countdown
This is where it got serious. No more fun and games, we were counting it down! With March Break fast approaching, it was time to start making the girls aware of just how quickly their world was about to get rocked! LOL 

 

We started a countdown right on their bedroom door! 17 days until the fun would begin. Each night the girls and I would take a heart off the door and count to see how many hearts/days were left until all the diapers were gone! For our own amusement and also because this was when we could commit to at least four days in a row at home with no interruptions, we scheduled to start potty training on St. Patrick's Day!

The Party
Nothing raises the stakes about a situation like a party! Celebrating the beginning of potty training with an underwear party was an idea I heard from another friend Mom! So party we did! Grandma, Nana, and Papa were all invited over for dinner and a big celebration complete with presents! The girls opened gift after gift all of underwear!! Frozen, Strawberry Shortcake, fun designs, how could you not be motivated to try to potty?

 

 The girls were excited to open their underwear, even if they didn't want to wear it! Hahaha!

Mommy and Daddy brought back an appropriate gift from Vegas!

 

Here Molly shows off her new Potty Training shirt!

Game On!
Tuesday, March 17th, 2015...Potty Training Day 1. I almost felt like this was a Parenting Boot Camp. Survive the next few days potty training twins and you can survive anything!! The girls were great, we cheered in the morning, took the sign completely down, turned up the heat in our house and removed the girls' clothing from the waste down! The potties were in the living room so the girls could easily use them and then the real fun began. Nothing could have prepared me for the "hyper-awareness" I was about to experience. Every toe curl, facial strain or shaking knees I was instantly questioning "Do you need to go pee-pee?"By 11am I was certain is was nearing supper time, LOL.  We spent time time sitting on the potty, playing near the potty and having lots and lots of accidents. The first successful potty attempt brought on many cheers and much relief as well as a well earned Frozen jelly bean for Molly. Well that certainly got their attention. Frozen jelly beans exist? They most certainly do and I'm not sure if it was their great taste or the dislike of warm urine running down their leg but wouldn't you know it, the girls started getting the hang of it. 

Day 1 Hanging on the Potty while watching Disney Movies (Snow White, Tangled, Frozen)

In fact, most of Day 1 was spent hanging out ON or NEAR the potty, to get the "feel" for it!

BUT, it was St. Patrick's Day, so a visit from Auntie Moe resulted in come awesome stickers, flashing mugs, hair clips and a few Irish Car Bombs from Mommy and Daddy. Yes, it was a long day, but a fun one, and while we did spend a lot of time cleaning up accidents during the first portion of the day, we did have a lot of time to potty like a rock star!

Most of Day 1 was spent in some form of dress resembling this outfit! (Thank you Tiff!)

Sometimes a few party favours can make all the difference!

Day 2 Shenanigans!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Growing a bit tired of the whole potty training thing!

 While Day 2 was a bit easier on Mommy and Daddy, the girls were growing a bit tired of keeping their butts planted on their potties. The girls spent most of their time naked from waist down and we did A LOT of crafts and watched a lot of Disney: Tangled, Frozen, Cinderella, 101 Dalmatians, and Snow White to name a few! The girls were also a big fan of Cars!

Doing crafts to pass the time!

 Even though the girls were getting a bit of cabin fever, they really started to get the hang of the whole potty business! We had a few funny incidents that will forever be ingrained in my memory from over-the-top celebrations to what we found in the potty to one of the girls claiming "they were all done" as they ran around the kitchen with a poop hanging from their little butt. I wouldn't lie, by the end of Day 2 I was slightly wondering if perhaps we had made the right decision. I was tracking potty business using the pee/poop/accident ratio thanks to my friend Beth. This at least let us realize we were making progress over the first few days. By Friday the girls were accident free and had started wearing underwear during the day. On the weekend we started adding pants, which brought on a few occurrences of the girls sitting on the potty to use it (AWESOME) only to pee right through their underwear and pants (NOT AWESOME). Thankfully the girls REALLY didn't enjoy this sensation and the they quickly mastered either telling us they had to go potty and asking for help or pulling down their own pants and underwear. By the end of March Break the girls were celebrating the season opening of the Avondale Dairy Bar with a milkshake...and they were fully dressed!

Abigail

Molly

 

 

 When Monday morning came and March Break was over, it was the first time I've ever been happy to see a return to work, LOL. It was such a relief to be able to relax and not worry about my girls bodily functions!! (Thank you Grandma and Papa for taking over!!!) 

It has just been over two weeks since the girls have said goodbye to diapers. We still use a pull-up for naps and bedtime, but we just refer to it as "big girl underwear" or "sleeping underwear". The girls are virtually accident free and have really impressed us. We passed another big milestone yesterday when after SEVEN tries at the Kilt n' Clover the girls finally used the portable princess potty (it's a folding seat that covers a big toilet). This was a HUGE milestone because previously the girls would refuse to use anything but their own potty. To the point that Molly would only use the red potty and Abigail would only use the green potty! BUT, this little gem which repeated itself today at the Merritton Arena! 

While this milestone was definitely the hardest to achieve, thus far it has been the most rewarding. Bye-bye diaper genie and change tables!! Whoo hoo parenting win!

The Turkettes are Big Girls (Part 2)

Due to our successful eliminating of the soother during the Christmas holidays, my parenting confidence was at a high! Why not conquer the bottle next!

This time, I took a bit more of a planned and prepared approach. I started talking to the girls on a regular basis about what big girls they were and how they were growing up! Our neighbour Renee had just recently bought the girls baby dolls and strollers for their birthday. This worked well into my conversation that "babies" used bottles, not big girls. We also visited with our "very pregnant with twins" friend Stefania. I explained to the girls that these babies would need bottles so we would have to pass our bottles on to them! When Sofia and Quinn arrived we couldn't be more excited. The girls and I packed up our presents for the babies along with a bottle for each one. The girls spent a lot of time explaining to Stefania that they were big girls now, and her babies could use the bottles! Once again the girls shared their experiences with anyone that would listen. If they were asked "How are you?" or "What's new?" the girls would immediately explain "I a big girl now, I gave my bottles to the babies!"

This transition was a lot smoother than the elimination of the soothers. Since the girls were drinking milk during the day, they never really asked for the bottle at bedtime and we didn't have to replace it with milk before bed, it sort of just disappeared. The best disappearance was the washing of the bottles each night!! AWESOME!

Convincing The Turkettes They Are "Big Girls Now"! Part 1

As 2014 was drawing to a close, my husband and I reflected on our comfortable, cozy life with Molly and Abigial. Routine, routine, routine was our mantra and the girls were thriving, but CHANGE was upon us. Not the simple change, where you decide to wear a different shirt. But the life-altering kind of change where you know the end product is going to be worth it, but you're uncertain of the journey. Now that the girls were two we realized we had four major transitions to survive. Eliminating the bottle, the soother, the diaper and the crib. I've listed them in the order we thought was going to best to attack them. 

We chose the bottle as the first transition for a few reasons; the soother seemed like a battle I didn't feel like waging over the Christmas holidays and potty training or playing the "get back in bed game" didn't seem all that fun either. So the bottle was our first plan of attack. (It helped that we were both tired of cleaning them, LOL.) It was also becoming increasingly obvious that the girls didn't need or sometimes even want milk before bed anymore. We set the date, Saturday, December 20th, our first day of Christmas vacation and my god-daughter's birthday!

Of course, that's when the girls thought it would be best to throw us a curve ball. After a great birthday party with lots of fun entertainment for the girls we arrived home to make two glaring discoveries that put a halt to our plan. Our first discovery, the girls were having so much fun playing at the party, they barely did any eating at the party! When we started getting the girls for bed they started asking for their bottles. We were just discussing the option of retracting our plan and giving them a bottle anyway when Shawn discovered one of the soothers had been chewed almost 
completely through. Since we were down to two soothers and if they've started chewing them, they're just going to continue, I decided at that moment that it was time for "no more soothers".

Talk about a plan diversion! No warning for us or for the girls...(maybe band-aids are better ripped off quickly!) we just gave the girls their bottle and then calmly explained that their soothers, or sue-sues as they affectionately referred to them, were broken and we had to throw them out. For the first few minutes the girls were very logical, thing that were broken needed to be thrown out, makes sense. But then the cute pleas from Molly came, "Daddy, fix it. Fix my sue-sue!" I'm not exactly sure how Shawn managed not to cave or run out to Shoppers and buy a replacement but we held our ground. Thankfully the girls only used their soothers for naps and bedtime so we only had two tricky times to overcome. Each time a nap or bedtime approached we would calmly explain that their soothers were broken and they were big girls now. The first three days were the hardest as the girls would complain a bit in bed before falling asleep. Then there was the sharing of their feelings where everyone from Grandma to the cashier at Zehrs had to hear the story about how the sue-sues were broken, Daddy couldn't fix it and they were big girls now.

It took about a week for the girls to stop talking about it on a daily basis. We thought it was going to be a painful journey but now that I'm not searching endlessly under a crib with a flashlight and a mini hockey stick for a soother at two in the morning, it was worth the transition!!

Update on the Turkettes

The past few months have flown by with many great developments but unfortunately little time to blog about it. The girls have been learning like sponges, absorbing everything we say and do! Here are some of the exciting things the girls have been up to the past few months.

• Gymnastics at Club Jump: the girls LOVE being able to swing from the bars, jump on the trampoline and crawl through the tunnel. It is amazing to see how much their skills have developed just by participating in gymnastics once a week.
• Dancing at Fusion: along with their friends Blakely and Guiliana, the girls have started dancing at Fusion Dance Studio. Little dancing outfits, tiny tap and jazz shoes and a little bag complete the picture. It is hilarious to see the girls randomly trying out their dance moves at home from a tap, tap, tap to a heel, heel, heel and the odd hands on hips. Although the first few months brought tears at the beginning of each class, the girls have adjusting to 40 minutes of dance time while Mommy and her friends catch up over  a cup of tea!
• Daycare at Debbie's: Every Wednesday's the girls travel to Debbie's house for daycare! Their friend Blakely from dance is there so it is a great opportunity the girls to play together. Blakely even made the girls special birthday cupcakes!
• Playing in the Snow: last year the girls were only able to sit in the snow and enjoy a sleigh ride. This year, however, the girls have LOVED the snow! We've attempted to make snow angels, build snowballs, jump in piles of snow and had some good laughs as the girls attempt to walk and run in the snow. The snowsuits are definitely making the girls look like little munchkins. 
• Birthday Party: This year we held the girls' birthday party at Mount Carmel, Nana's home. They have a great basement hall that was perfect for the number of family and friends we had. The girls were able to sing Happy Birthday, enjoyed the Care Bear Cake and were overwhelmed by everyone's generosity!

We are so impressed, every day, with all of the things the girls' talents and abilities. They can count to ten and sing a variety of songs such as Jingle Bells, Happy Birthday, Frosty the Snowman, ABCs, Wheels on the Bus and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Their level of communication and ability to repeat things is amazing. I recently asked Molly if she was a parrot because she was repeating me so often, her response. "I'm not a parrot, I'm Molly". LOL

We can't wait until Christmas time and all of fun we will have together!

The First Day of School Photo

Every September, children take a photograph to mark their first day of school! Thanks to the great idea of my teaching partner Kristin, the girls have their own adult t-shirts to recognize that they will be the graduating class of 2030! Hopefully we can repeat this picture every year!

September 2013

September 2014

The Play House

Watching the girls play can bring endless hours of entertainment. The water table is currently the best attention grabber for the girls. Endless toys have made their way through the water table and the girls are more than happy to scoop up some water in a cup to cool down your feet! The only toy that could possibly top the enthusiasm for the water table is the plastic play house. 

While venturing out on play dates this summer to visit the Vinc's, the Hulan's or the Gentile's the girls always made their way into the plastic play house. Molly in particular was quite taken with these homes and the girls would spend the majority of their visits walking in and out of the house, looking through the windows and playing with the gadgets inside. Thus began our quest to find a house for the girls to have at home. We tried Kijiji, the odd garage sale and finally posted our request for a play house on twitter. Shortly after one of our friends, Lazar, responded with a free house for the Turkettes. With the help of Greg and Nik we brought the DELUXE play house home! Assembling the house after the girls went to bed, we anxiously awaited their joyful reactions the next morning! Here are some pictures of the all the fun!

Loving the new house!

 Peek-a-boo!

Have your people call my people!

This is AWESOME!

Why Every Toddler Should Own One of These!

 Look at the absolute joy on these faces!

Screams and shouts of happiness!

Every toddler needs to experience this, including their parents. The sheer joy of hundreds of bubbles (effortlessly) flying through the air! You would hyperventilate before you could blow this many bubbles. The best part was sitting back, watching their wonder and awe as bubble were all around them. For under $10 the girls screamed, ran and chased bubbles all over our front porch...until the fish bubble maker was left out in the rain one unfortunate day.